How to install podman 4.4 on Ubuntu 22.04?

[electrofloat]

Ubuntu 22.04 is the latest LTS version of the OS. It only contains podman 3.4.

The whatever repository here: https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/devel:/kubic:/libcontainers:/unstable/xUbuntu_22.04/amd64/
only has version 4.3. and have "(WIP - USE WITH CAUTION)" title with it.

This one: https://build.opensuse.org/project/show/devel:kubic:libcontainers:stable is a lot older.

The assets here: https://github.com/containers/podman/releases/tag/v4.4.0
only have .exe, .msi, .zip, something that has an extension .pkg, and podman-remote .tgz.

Where are the files to install podman 4.4 (not remote) on linux? I'd like to try out the new pasta driver for rootless containers.

[afbjorklund]

I think that is up to ubuntu, there are no binaries from podman upstream:

• Ubuntu 22 apt-get install podman is only version 3.4.4 #14065

There could be some Podman PPA or similar package repository available ?

• Is there any official supported package team for ubuntu 22.04? #13097

[baude]

yeah, i think we are all in the same boat on that one.

[afbjorklund]

... other than redhat enterprise linux.

You can run it on Fedora, it is not only RHEL.

https://repology.org/project/podman/versions

[markkrj]

I think this is slowing podman adoption a lot. You guys should provide packages/repositories for, at least, Debian/Ubuntu and RHEL derived distros, like Docker do. You keep delivering nice features in podman, but sadly, it hits mainstream server distributions way too late. I, for one, went with Docker because of that.

[jetflux]

Same situation here, ubuntu package is just to outdated, and does'nt work properly.
Had to go with docker because of this. but podman is so much better, leaner compared to docker.

[baude]

I would really love for you to communicate your wants to Ubuntu. Is https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libpod and appropriate place?

[dtufood-kihen]

I would really love for you to communicate your wants to Ubuntu. Is https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libpod and appropriate place?

I believe a more user friendly approach would be to create your own independent APT repository and distribute Ubuntu packages for Podman that way, similar to Docker: https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/ubuntu/

This would also allow you to replicate the same installation procedure, making it even easier to adapt to Podman.

[rhatdan]

Are you volunteering to maintain this?

[nerumo]

I understand your point of view, that maintaining all these packages for the different versions is quite some effort (effort that I'm also not willing/able to do :) ). But so many apps out there are only widespread, because they take care of the packaging.

For me, I also can't recommend podman to my colleagues yet because there are fixes/features that are only on the latest versions.

[yhshin]

@rhatdan
You mentioned in your book Podman in Action that you advise to "get the packaged versions" due to complexity of meeting requirements to build all necessary tools such as conmon, etc.

Here the problem is that the available packaged versions are somewhat old versions especially the ones that included in LTS. And it seems that any LTS like Ubuntu is not going to upgrade any apps in their system just because of users asked for it. Especially if it includes a major version upgrade.

So all this looks like to me a situation that a company produced an amazing fabulous product but the only product that customer can get is slightly faded old ones while the shiny new ones that customers really want to get are displayed behind the show window.

The only way to get the new products seems to break the window. All these methods available in the internet including the ones in here using homebrew (@lgonzalezsa), kubic (@electrofloat), and even building from source seems attempts to break the show window.

As a meager user, I just can only imagine a burden of packaging, but as users, @markkrj, @dtufood-kihen, @beginner1010, @nerumo, and many others from other sites like SO pointed out, making packages available to users is very essential to widespread usage of this wonderful product.

P.S. Ubuntu 24.04 is released today and Podman 4.9.3 comes with it so this issue might seem over for now for users who would move to it. But this issue will repeat after sometime later looking for a way to install podman 5 or 6 to Ubuntu 24.04.

[beginner1010]

@rhatdan @baude
We switched from Docker to Podman as Kubernetes doesn't support Docker in Docker, owing to its non-compliance with the OCI standards. However, with recent versions, we've encountered issues, leading us to pin Podman to certain versions. The challenge arises because the OPENSUSE repository we use frequently updates and phases out the versions we rely on.

This isn't a formal request, but rather feedback: if there isn't a user-friendly method to install and maintain specific versions of Podman, we may have to consider alternative solutions. It's a reasonable expectation for users of any tool to have access to stable, version-specific installations. To not support this seems counterintuitive.

[fortuna]

You can download pre-built binaries from the releases page: https://github.com/containers/podman/releases

[computator]

That's just for Podman Remote, not the full Podman. It only has the full version for Mac and Windows.

[afbjorklund]

You can use podman-remote-static to create a VM on Linux (KVM), but it doesn't work with Podman Desktop.

[pietrodantuono]

Maybe not ideal, but I figured that homebrew on Linux allows installing the latest podman version (5.0.1 as of today).

Tested on Zorin OS 17.1 Core.

https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/podman

[lgonzalezsa]

@pietrodantuono thanks for the pointer! using homebrew on Linux, tested podman 5.0.1 on Pop!OS Ubuntu LTS based 22.04 💪

[afbjorklund]

Should probably be added to the list at https://podman.io/docs/installation, even if Homebrew is not a Linux distribution

brew install podman

[croqaz]

I'm on Ubuntu 22.04 so I had a very old version of Podman. Installed brew specifically to get the latest Podman, but I also installed Lima. The command lima nerdctl can be aliased as docker or podman and works perfectly. Using it for a few weeks.

[itsCheithanya]

Should probably be added to the list at https://podman.io/docs/installation, even if Homebrew is not a Linux distribution

brew install podman

I want latest podman to be installed in system wide , it can't de done with brew right?,because i want to use podman go bindings and it gives this issue

[afbjorklund]

Homebrew don't appear to install the systemd units, but is running the daemon with podman system service --time=0

[GodBleak]

If you want the latest version of Podman on the latest Ubuntu LTS, you could use https://software.opensuse.org/download/package?package=podman&project=home%3Aalvistack.

[lgonzalezsa]

Thanks @GodBleak I think I saw the alvistack in the past. I am curious about the software supply chain and how to make sure we use a trusted source. Do you any pointers on how alvistack takes care of the software supply chain ?

[itsCheithanya]

If you want the latest version of Podman on the latest Ubuntu LTS, you could use https://software.opensuse.org/download/package?package=podman&project=home%3Aalvistack.

But im getting this netavark issue when installing using this method

[afbjorklund]

Sounds like a problem for https://build.opensuse.org/project/show/home:alvistack and https://github.com/alvistack ?

[boutell]

We might have better luck pleading with ubuntu to backport relevant bug fixes to the 3.x series they are releasing, in particular truly painful issues like:

Error: readlink /var/lib/containers/storage/overlay/l: invalid argument

See:

#8743

Rather than expecting them to support a new major version of podman on an existing LTS of Ubuntu.

[nickwilliams-zaxiom]

That's not the only painful issue. I'm having to switch back to Docker (having found no way to upgrade Podman on 22.04) due to this known bug that the Ubuntu maintainers have expressed no intention of fixing:

...
WARN[0000] Error validating CNI config file /home/williamsn/.config/cni/net.d/foobarname.conflist: [plugin firewall does not support config version "1.0.0"]
...

For me, Podman 3.4.4 is hosed and unusable.

[huyz]

@nickwilliams-zaxiom Apparently, all you have to do is modify the *.conflist files to say 0.4.0 instead. A simple script (with sed -i or perl -pi -e) should do it (maybe even inserted into a podman/docker wrapper to make sure that the files are always fixed)

[nickwilliams-zaxiom]

I'm not sure that could work for me. I'm using podman-compose, so my networks are created when I podman-compose up -d and destroyed when I podman-compose down. There's never an opportunity to edit the transient network config file.

[huyz]

Would turning all the networks to external and pre-creating them be feasible?

[brooksvb]

Here I am trying to have Podman v5 on Ubuntu 24.04. It's such a bummer when I have to start adding unvetted 3rd party repositories or manually download and install packages just to have a recent software version. Really puts a cramp into my automation infrastructure.

[boutell]

I'm in the same boat with you pretty much (Ubuntu 22.04 LTS in my case, so stuck on 3.x, and there have been no updates to correct some unpleasant bugs that don't exist in 4.x/5.x).

But maintaining ports for multiple distros is a lot of work, which is why teams with no dog at all in the distro fight still tend to abandon it and ship snaps etc. Snaps won't work for orchestration software like Podman, but from Red Hat's perspective they have done their part by creating and maintaining Podman.

Of course they offer packages for their own distros, but shouldn't the Debian community and/or Canonical worry about ports to that distro family?

That's why I think we'd be better off taking our concerns about backporting specific bug fixes to previous LTS releases to the Debian/Ubuntu maintenance teams and contributing patches.

Or running Docker, hey it's an option.

[brooksvb]

Of course they offer packages for their own distros, but shouldn't the Debian community and/or Canonical worry about ports to that distro family?

Agreed. They should.

Or running Docker, hey it's an option.

I'm totally on-board with rootless podman quadlet infrastructure. Once I've gotten through the subpar documentation and lots of gotchas, it's a clean and secure setup that's working well. I have a hard time believing that automating an up-to-date package is now my biggest headache in my project. I might consider running these servers on Fedora if it means up-to-date packages.

[k3wals]

The lack of official newer podman packages in 22.04 has been one of the biggest headaches for me. I've managed to get from 3.4.4 to 4.3.1 on 22.04 without hurdles and without using 3rd party sources. It's using packages from lunar (23.04) which is EOL though... Seems pretty stable from what I can see in my use.

I found this gist by shvchk, but I forked it to add a few more related packages. (crun and conmon)

https://gist.github.com/k3wals/84ed49a02cee61ab708a0c9730099363

[nickwilliams-zaxiom]

This may have worked three weeks ago, but it doesn't appear to anymore:

Ign:4 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu lunar InRelease
Hit:5 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates InRelease
Hit:6 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-backports InRelease
Err:7 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu lunar Release
  404  Not Found [IP: 185.125.190.82 80]
Reading package lists... Done
E: The repository 'http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu lunar Release' does not have a Release file.
N: Updating from such a repository can't be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default.
N: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration details.

I haven't been able to find any way around it after about an hour of Googling. Sad. I guess I have to switch back to Docker. Podman is completely broken in Ubuntu 22.04 with a known bug that the Ubuntu maintainers seem unconcerned with fixing.

[k3wals]

Yeah, this was expected. I personally saved the *.deb packages in anticipation of this, but I'm not certain it'll satisfy all the dependencies.

buildah_1.28.2+ds1-1_amd64.deb
conmon_2.1.6+ds1-1_amd64.deb
crun_1.8-1_amd64.deb
golang-github-containers-common_0.50.1+ds1-4_all.deb
libsubid4_1%3a4.13+dfsg1-1ubuntu1_amd64.deb
netavark_1.4.0-3_amd64.deb
podman_4.3.1+ds1-5ubuntu1_amd64.deb

I'm upgrading to 24.04 just to be able to update Podman to at least 4.x.

[nickwilliams-zaxiom]

Yeah, I'd love to upgrade to 24.04. I'm trying to automate a test for a very niche edge case in our software, which I've decided is most easily done using containers, but we support about 40 platforms, so I have to have a solution that works in 20.04, 22.04, and 24.04.

[boutell]

I have reduced my rate of issues with Podman 3.x on Ubuntu 22.04LTS by eliminating the use of named volumes in favor of bind mounts. This removes Podman from a significant area of responsibility, it is no longer responsible for any persistent state. So far I haven't seen the dreaded overlayfs corruption errors again.

Probably my next step will be to migrate to plain old Docker, but I do not look forward to it as I already have logic to handle forwarding correctly to Podman's virtual network etc. in my firewall configuration.